August 30 2010 - MV Explorer

I slept so well it was incredible.  All those sleepy nights finally paid off, and even though I was worried it would be as sleepless as before, the only time I woke up was at my alarm, which I had set for Ellie at 0630 because her alarm wasn’t working.  She went into the bathroom, and after a moment—
“Stephanie, when do you plan on getting up?”
“Probably  around ten.”  My first class of the day was at 1045.
“Well, it’s ten to eleven right now.” 
WHAT. I freaked out and literally ran out the door in five minutes flat.  That’s the last time I don’t use an alarm and assume I won’t have slept well!  Luckily I was only ten minutes late, and didn’t miss much.  I really learned a lot through—verses, meters, mnemonic?  I’m going to have to work really hard, because aside from whaangsty emo poetry from early high school, I’ve never really written or even really studied very much poetry.  I do like it a lot though. 
After that, I wolfed down a quick lunch before heading out to Anthropology of Tourism.  We mostly discussed the syllabus, but apparently we have to do a research paper and presentation on a famous tourist destination—with another person or two.  EFF.  I know no one in that classroom, so that puts me on edge.  I hate group presentations and would much rather do it myself.  I then went to see if my Gibraltar trip was really cancelled, but the field office keeps  odd hours, so I’ll have to check back tomorrow.  I really want to go.  I think if I can’t get in, I might sign up for a hike instead.  I feel like I need to do a lot of SAS trips at first, in order to make friends. =/
Then it was off to Contemporary Social Issues.  The professor had a number line on the board (1-7) that ranged from extremely liberal (1) and extremely conservative (7).  I was happy to see the category with the most was liberal, though there were quite a few conservatives as well.  As a class we made a list of qualities of liberal and conservative viewpoints, but that got a little dicey (“Liberals are socialists!”).  But I can already tell that I’ll like the class.  We also have to do a group presentation on a social issue, AND we have to write the paper together, so I’ll have to hope I can find some other liberals to discuss the pros of legalizing gay marriage with me.    This will be my first political science oriented class, so it’s very exciting.  :D
After seeing all my classes, I feel pretty confident that I can do well in them, though I need to make sure I don’t procrastinate on anything.  I feel as though I’ll do okay, though Ellie warned me that she heard in the seminar she went to tonight that they said that five classes could be too overwhelming.  I am hoping that it’s going to be okay, because there’s no internet or places to go on the ship that will distract me.
I met with Donna so we could discuss our community building.  Being as that you can only have food in the dining room, it looks like we’re sunk (students only come to these things if there’s food, after all).  But we WILL do Sea Dinners, and she took me to find a big brown ream of paper, some magnets, and a marker so I could make a “question of the week” type thing, hang it in our hall, and let people write all over it.  The question for now is “What adventure are you the most excited for?”  There are lots of responses already, though I haven’t read them yet. 
I grabbed dinner while staring out the window.  The ocean out here is the most incredible dark blue I’ve ever seen.  When I moved to the library, I tried to calendar all my programs, though I definitely will have to finish it later—the calendar is tiny for all the writing I need to do on it.  When I returned to my room, I called the steward for an extra pillow, and Ellie came in and asked me if I wanted to eat dinner and cake for her birthday (it was yesterday).  I said yes, but first ran off to pick up my new poetry book at the book store.  The main dining hall wasn’t too full, but the table of Ellie’s guests were, so I squeezed in as we sang happy birthday.  Little kinds ran over in shameless hopes for  cake, it was hilarious.
Dean David was giving a lecture about Espania, so I went to that around 2000.  Unfortunately, he just talked about the different cities in which you could see cool architecture, while I had been hoping for “must-do” things in Cadiz.  I was a little disappointed in that respect.  But he’s giving another lecture about Spanish tapas tomorrow niht, so hopefully that will be more helpful for me. 
I really hope this class thing works out, I really don’t want to drop poetry.  But it seems like everyone is trying to deter me against it because of the extremely heavy workload, and I’ll be honest, I am not going to stay in port to do homework.  Any thoughts?
The Mermaid of Err that has lurked outside our window has vanished.  She makes this squeaky noise that keeps us awake—she must have found someone else to err at.